The Power of Music

This week’s little Clarity Cafe episode is quite literally music to our ears ;) This super uplifting chat is dedicated to The Power of Music! We are in awe of the fact that no matter the time in our lives, whatever we might be going through, we can always look to music to bring us joy, to help lift us up when we are down, and to connect us to ourselves, the people we love and even complete strangers!

So come vibe with us as we take a minute to connect back to our musical roots, reminisce a little, and talk about how we can train ourselves to create more positive vibes in our lives, healing our souls…all through the power of music!

Transcript

Barb  0:03  
We all have music from different times in our lives, right? Like our favorite song when we were five years old is not our favorite song when we're 15, or when we're 25, or 35. And so how evocative music can be of those different times of our lives. And when I love having someone share their music with me, music that I may know from my life, or I may not know, but that's very special to them, and gives me more of a sense of connection to them. Hi, and welcome back to the clarity cafe. I'm Barb and I'm here with my co host, copilot and clarity sister Callie. And we're so happy to have you here with us today to talk about music and the power that music plays in our lives. To bring us joy, and to help us through different types of situations and experiences and how we can use music to help and train ourselves to more positive vibes when we're a little bit down, and to help us heal and to help us through different stages of our lives. And just really to reflect on how important music has been. For me personally, and I know Kelly, also for you, we've had many conversations and shared many songs and dances together. And how the joy that that brings us, and all the healing that we can get through our experiences with music. So great, big topic, super fun topic. And so happy to have all of you here with us today to talk about music and have some fun and some giggles and maybe we'll even sing a song or two. Who knows.

Cali  1:43  
We don't know where we're headed, but we're going

Barb  1:46  
that's right. Yeah, one thing I think is that is that music can be so effective to help us get into our self care routine, even if it's only for one song or for a few minutes if we're really busy. But we have just a second while we're driving somewhere to an appointment or to work or when we're just moving from one Zoom meeting to another from one activity to another. Just even a few bars of our favorite song can kinda change the mood. What are your experiences with that, Kelly?

Cali  2:17  
Yeah, I love to use music to set a vibe change a vibe, find a vibe.

Barb  2:27  
Really vibe,

Cali  2:27  
vibe, music, love music, it's just something that is so diverse and all the different ways that music is composed and comes together. So there's like, you know, self care, I love that idea of picking a song when you're doing self care or and just you know, it could be a motivating song, it could be a, you know, any kind of song, but just something while you're doing your daily routine to get the day started. It's always fun to have something for me. I started singing at a very young age and music has always been a massive part of my life. And I think that when I'm thinking about my days, if you were to walk into my house at any point, there is a different type of music on every single day. You could come in the house, and it could be classical. You could come in the house. And it would be like hardcore. You could come in the house. And it would be dance music. It could be bossa nova. I mean, you name it. Jazz like reggae. I'm always listening to different music and having it just kind of hold the space. It's just a really fun exploration because there's so much great music out there.

Barb  3:54  
Yeah, it's actually amazing. I remember in the old days when we would have to, you know, exchange music and give each other music because we didn't, we only had our own music collections. We're so blessed now to have all this access to music through our music players on our various devices, and how much different how many different styles we can get, etc. And even just having the ability to share a song. You know, I know sometimes I'll be listening to a song and I want to just send it to you because I want you to be able to share that vibe because I know that we'll share that same energy around that song and the energy around music to share with your family. Share with your co workers and how those kinds of things connect us is another really important part for me of music and how connected I feel to different communities through music. Live music, of course is a big example of that. But even you know streamed music, we're connecting with all the other people that love that music. You know whether we're listening to Cuban music and we can feel that island vibe like we were doing the other night. and how that shifts the mood so quickly. And you're sort of experiencing now the richness of a culture through their music and, and just that feeling that you can get from it, it's so puts us in touch with feels, and the richness of that, it's so quickly, because our brains are entrained to that, and our brains react to music, you see brain scans of people listening to music, there's all kinds of brain activity when you're listening to, and, or creating music or singing or playing an instrument.

Cali  5:31  
Yeah, so you just bring us into that next level of this topic, which is using music to entrain and retrain the brain. So this could go in like seven different directions. But let me start with we were kicking off saying, you know, music can set a vibe and can change the vibe and, and then there's like that next level of music really healing us in whatever state we're in and helping us transform things. So that can be different types of music during different parts of our lives. But to have themed songs during different parts of our lives, or to have music that's help us process emotions, and grief, or happy, or love, or all of the wonderful things that are out there. It's really fascinating how big that world is of music and expression and our own personal journeys of expression and healing.

Barb  6:34  
Yeah, and I think, you know, as we start to explore this topic of expression, is, you know, sometimes even when you have something you want to say or verbalize, you know, I know a lot of people good friends of mine, sometimes you get stuck on trying to express something, you can express it better through a song by sharing a song. And then having that like, oh, finding that commonality, and, and shared experience of the song can help bring you into better connection and communication, make it easier to have that conversation or maybe get it into the right vibe. You know, I know, sometimes when we're doing healing work together, you know, we have music that we love to use. One of the people that we use a lot is Steven Halpern, he is what has this wonderful healing music, which, as our listeners, if you're not familiar with him, he's a amazing composer. Many albums, and that are all about healing at the speed of sound and, and using beautiful music for meditative healing experiences. And then, you know, being able to shift from that into something lighthearted and sort of higher energy, you can feel those vibes shift and be able to kind of ride those waves, and share that experience. And I find that particularly, you know, in a challenging situation with a health issue, for instance, if you wake up and you have a headache, or you're feeling a little tired, sometimes if you put on some of that healing music, you know, maybe start out with a little meditative music to start your day. And then, like the music you put on right after you'd get out of your shower, and you're ready to really get psyched for work. So you want something that's a little more, can I get your dancin, and get your heartbeat in a little bit, or for me, if I'm one things I love to do is cook. We've talked about this before on the podcast, and I love to listen to music while I'm cooking, because that kind of makes me dance. And I will look at people from all over the world I see women particularly but men as well. dancing a little bit while they're cooking, you know that movement, you put that good vibe into the food, and you put that good vibe and love and energy into the preparation of food that you're going to share with people, then you bring that positive vibration all the way into that whole experience of sharing food, for instance. So it's just such a wide and a brilliant way to share connection energetically.

Cali  9:11  
It is and all good parties have like a good music and it's always fun to have and then when the music goes off or some playlist goes down like a rabbit hole, like oh, no, gotta change the vibe here. So I'll share just a couple of so you talked about we use music for healing and we'd love Steven Halpern in his work and for those of you looking at checking him out I really liked the chakra suite it's old but it's like great meaning he's got a lot of newer stuff so you might have to dig is what I mean by its old because music really is timeless in my mind but you definitely might have to dig to find the chakra sweet but it's a it's a good one and then when I run cuz I love to run still for healing and getting back to great health, but as I run, I have a playlist that I listened to only when I'm running, it's a, the music has a certain speed, I always like to have a good beat to it. But I don't listen to it. When I'm in the car, I only listened or sitting or doing anything else, I only listen when I'm running. And the reason for that is I've been trained my brain to a certain speed, and a certain level of output when that music is on. So the moment that means it comes on my body goes up, this is the thing we do. And it helps me keep a good pace. And it helps me to keep moving and ignore the 100 voices in my head that say I don't, I'm not really into this, I'm tired, I want to go back to bed or it's cold. I'm hot, I'm thirsty. I want more coffee, whatever it is, I just ignore those thoughts. And I just rise above it, listen to the music. And so that has been really a fantastic one. You know, I have music for when I'm on my road trips, and I'm traveling around and I do a lot of driving. So I have like that ability to go into an entire album and listen to it fully without any rush or any expectation and just kind of experience that and see what comes up. really in love that. And then the final one, we started this podcast talking about Michael Franti and his lovely work that he's done. And BB Can you believe? Since we started this podcast, I think he's now released two albums.

Barb  11:44  
Here that man's got a lot of music and great songs and great vibes. I'm super excited, by the way, because he's, you know, we're back on tour. So that's going to be super fun. But yes, I know is he lots of wonderful, uplifting music and down that road. Yeah, and

Cali  12:01  
so Barb, and I, you know, I've talked a little bit about my journey of, of health and coming back into healing and that long road that it's been over the last several years. But I remember, you know, getting back into a little bit of life stuff, and I'd have a long day of healing or being in the clinic or whatnot. And then we would go to the concert, we'd go see Ferrante at night, and it'd be this like, beautiful outdoor scene. And I may not feel great, but I was there and the vibe that Ferrante put on and the entire like crowd and it's okay, if I, all I could do is sit in the chair at all I had the energy for, but allowing that to heal me and bring me into the present moment. So that, you know, healing from these, this, you know, really bad illnesses didn't become my default for every part of my day, I was able to break it up in my brain and say, I know I'm processing not feeling well or being very sick. But I can take my attention off of that. And music can be that powerful thing to shift the gear. So just for any of you that might be kind of processing something heavy, or maybe you've got some grief, or maybe you've got some things and you're finding your mind is super set on a default. I highly recommend finding some music that transports the brain so that it's not hanging out there all the time. So it has a chance to begin to reset.

Barb  13:37  
So true. So true. Many, many memories of those of those moments. And same situation for me were days when I'm maybe dealing with some health issues, maybe a little fatigue, pain, whatever and being able to experience that music, particularly live music outside is so amazing. Michael Franti has a wonderful song for some of his early work that's called everyone deserves music. So it's a good one to check out where he just says, you know, even your worst enemies, they deserve music, and even all the weird people in your family, they deserve music, too. And that sort of gets us into that, how you can shift that vibe and have a shared experience with people. That's a positive experience that can help you and help uplift other people at the same time. The other thing about sharing music that I really love, as I've gotten further along in my life is we all have music from different times in our lives, right? Like their favorite song when we were five years old is not our favorite song when we were 15 or when we're 25 or 35. And so how evocative music can be of those different times of our lives. And when I love having someone share their music with me music that I may know from my life or I may not know but this very special to them. It gives me more of a sense of connection to them. So as we think about you know, like you were Talking about a playlist at a party. You know, it's great when it's really familiar and kind of maybe everybody loves the mid 80s, or everybody loves, you know this or that. But then something different comes on, it opens up a whole different window of understanding and connection and just hearing some new music. And, and your brain actually benefits from that, right? It's a really effortless way to help your brain and, you know, create create new patterns in your brains, they've, I know, I've been told in the past that for people that are really good at music, and that are composed music, and were involved in music, they tend to also be good at languages, they tend to also be good at complex problem solving. And so as we're trying to heal our brains, from whatever's happened to us in our lives, music actually can help with those things. And we can start to use that in an effortless way to how nice to have something that's not a lot of effort to be able to heal with. And the healing power of music. Again, just to come back around to that idea that we talked about at the beginning of the podcast is so powerful, whether it's happy music or music to calm us down when we feel a little anxious music to help us listen to calm down before we go to sleep. There's a lot of really powerful music that has binaural beats underneath it, for instance, that helps to modulate your brainwaves. So there's just been so much healing work done with music, and we have so much access to it now that I'd love to hear some music from some of our listeners that that is their favorite kind of Healing Music and their favorite fun music because I'm always looking for new music. So we'd love to, if you're listening to this episode, and you got a favorite song that you're listening to right now, send it to us comment, send us a DM, let us know, because we'll add it to our phone playlists.

Cali  16:52  
Yeah, I was just thinking BB about how I think there's so much going on and with media and the way that it's constantly like organizing how we should be thinking about things. And I put that in air quotes. Always kind of driving this scare picture in this, like, the world is ending kind of thing. And granted, there's a lot going on, that needs to be handled, and we need to all lean in on that. But we can get entrained to that noise and end up finding ourselves talking about that with everybody we come in contact with. And what happens is that we just ends up spreading that fear that consciousness all of that. Now, that's not to say that if an event comes up, and you want to have a discussion about the event and explore the event, that's one thing, but if it's just like, Well, did you know this is happening, and now this is happening, and this is happening? Well, that kind of a conversation doesn't really serve us when it's all we're sort of talking about. So what I like about music, and exploring music is that can be a great conversation starter, it can be a great new thing to talk about. And it can be something you can share with people you know, you can what I love about music, is it any kind of relationship could be a professional relationship, it could be the barista that you met at a coffee shop, and hey, what's your favorite song you're listening to right now or, you know, looking for new songs from my playlist. Or you know, it can be family and friends and people you're very connected to but to share the conversation of exploring new music and talking about it and sharing it and learning new things from each other. It's just a really great new kind of focus area that you may want to employ that tool at some point. So you know, we talk about music a lot, don't we borrow?

Barb  18:54  
We do. We share a lot of music and, and super fun music. This is just like one of the senses, right? So we're using our auditory sense, we're also sometimes singing. You know, anytime our senses involved in an experience, there's a there's a connection and we get and trained on that. So the entrainment that we have of a pleasant experience with music, then we bring that music into a different experience. It can help be evocative of that experience. And, and this is just a different way to say what we've been saying for the last, you know, 1015 minutes, but all of the positive experiences that we can have with any kind of sound, whether it's, you know, data visualization, or music, and usually there's a combination of those things that we can bring into other environments that help us you know, you hear those first two bars and instantly you're back at that feeling. It's such a quick way to get a positive vibe. And to help ourselves keep that vibe going and share that vibe.

Cali  19:57  
Set a recap. We've got music that can lighten our day set our day. Help us with a house cleaning or chopping food for meals, we've got music that we can use to motivate ourselves to get moving, take a walk, go for that drive. And we can use music in a healing way as well. You know, tapping into those deeper sounds. And there's so much great music out there that's tailored to lighten up certain parts of our brain and bring us into lightness or rest and restore, relax and heal. So, in the final piece of this is use music as something we share with each other, explore new music, ask the people around you, what do you listen to what are you enjoying, and, and be able to have those shared experiences and conversations about what music is meaning to them what they're into, and, you know, just really embrace the power of music to transform. So that's it, folks, that's our little sip of clarity on the power of music. Thank you, all of you on our social communities. We're just having so much fun in those conversations and sharing with you and love all your comments. Appreciate the DM and as always, you know, take what works, leave what doesn't and if something resonates with you here on clarity cafe, share it with people. That's how this little podcast keeps growing. And until next time, be well